"I could not survive it, Albany. When I think that even our own
influence over him, which, sometimes forgotten in our absence, is
ever effectual whilst he is with us, is by your plan to be entirely
removed, what perils might he not rush upon? I could not sleep
in his absence--I should hear his death groan in every breeze;
and you, Albany, though you conceal it better, would be nearly as
anxious."

Thus spoke the facile monarch, willing to conciliate his brother
and cheat himself, by taking it for granted that an affection, of
which there were no traces, subsisted betwixt the uncle and nephew.

"Your paternal apprehensions are too easily alarmed, my lord," said
Albany. "I do not propose to leave the disposal of the Prince's
motions to his own wild pleasure. I understand that the Prince
is to be placed for a short time under some becoming restraint--
that he should be subjected to the charge of some grave counsellor,
who must be responsible both for his conduct and his safety, as a
tutor for his pupil."

"How! a tutor, and at Rothsay's age!" exclaimed the' King; "he
is two years beyond the space to which our laws limit the term of
nonage."

"The wiser Romans," said Albany, "extended it for four years after
the period we assign; and, in common sense, the right of control
ought to last till it be no longer necessary, and so the time ought
to vary with the disposition. Here is young Lindsay, the Earl of
Crawford, who they say gives patronage to Ramorny on this appeal.
He is a lad of fifteen, with the deep passions and fixed purpose
of a man of thirty; while my royal nephew, with much more amiable
and noble qualities both of head and heart, sometimes shows, at
twenty-three years of age, the wanton humours of a boy, towards
whom restraint may be kindness. And do not be discouraged that it
is so, my liege, or angry with your brother for telling the truth;
since the best fruits are those that are slowest in ripening, and
the best horses such as give most trouble to the grooms who train
them for the field or lists."

The Duke stopped, and, after suffering King Robert to indulge
for two or three minutes in a reverie which he did not attempt to
interrupt, he added, in a more lively tone: "But, cheer up, my noble
liege; perhaps the feud may be made up without farther fighting or
difficulty. The widow is poor, for her husband, though he was much
employed, had idle and costly habits. The matter may be therefore
redeemed for money, and the amount of an assythment may be recovered
out of Ramorny's estate."

"Nay, that we will ourselves discharge," said King Robert, eagerly
catching at the hope of a pacific termination of this unpleasing
debate. "Ramorny's prospects will be destroyed by his being sent
from court and deprived of his charge in Rothsay's household, and
it would be ungenerous to load a falling man. But here comes our
secretary, the prior, to tell us the hour of council approaches.
Good morrow, my worthy father."

"Benedicite, my royal liege," answered the abbot.

"Now, good father," continued the King, "without waiting for Rothsay,
whose accession to our counsels we will ourselves guarantee, proceed
we to the business of our kingdom. What advices have you from the
Douglas?"

"He has arrived at his castle of Tantallon, my liege, and has sent
a post to say, that, though the Earl of March remains in sullen
seclusion in his fortress of Dunbar, his friends and followers
are gathering and forming an encampment near Coldingham, Where it
is supposed they intend to await the arrival of a large force of
English, which Hotspur and Sir Ralph Percy are assembling on the
English frontier."

"That is cold news," said the King; "and may God forgive George of
Dunbar!"

The Prince entered as he spoke, and he continued: "Ha! thou art
here at length, Rothsay; I saw thee not at mass."

"I was an idler this morning," said the Prince, "having spent a
restless and feverish night."

"Ah, foolish boy!" answered the King; "hadst thou not been over
restless on Fastern's Eve, thou hadst not been feverish on the
night of Ash Wednesday."

"Let me not interrupt your praying, my liege," said the Prince,
lightly. "Your Grace Was invoking Heaven in behalf of some one--
an enemy doubtless, for these have the frequent advantage of your
orisons."

"Sit down and be at peace, foolish youth!" said his father, his eye
resting at the same time on the handsome face and graceful figure
of his favourite son. Rothsay drew a cushion near to his father's
feet, and threw himself carelessly down upon it, while the King
resumed.

"I was regretting that the Earl of March, having separated warm
from my hand with full assurance that he should receive compensation
for everything which he could complain of as injurious, should
have been capable of caballing with Northumberland against his own
country. Is it possible he could doubt our intentions to make good
our word?"

"I will answer for him--no," said the Prince. "March never doubted
your Highness's word. Marry, he may well have made question whether
your learned counsellors would leave your Majesty the power of
keeping it."

Robert the Third had adopted to a great extent the timid policy
of not seeming to hear expressions which, being heard, required,
even in his own eyes, some display of displeasure. He passed on,
therefore, in his discourse, without observing his son's speech,
but in private Rothsay's rashness augmented the displeasure which
his father began to entertain against him.

"It is well the Douglas is on the marches," said the King. "His
breast, like those of his ancestors, has ever been the best bulwark
of Scotland."

"Then woe betide us if he should turn his back to the enemy," said
the incorrigible Rothsay.

"Dare you impeach the courage of Douglas?" replied the King,
extremely chafed.

"No man dare question the Earl's courage," said Rothsay, "it is as
certain as his pride; but his luck may be something doubted."

"By St. Andrew, David," exclaimed his father, "thou art like a
screech owl, every word thou sayest betokens strife and calamity."

"I am silent, father," answered the youth.

"And what news of our Highland disturbances?" continued the King,
addressing the prior.

"I trust they have assumed a favourable aspect," answered the
clergyman. "The fire which threatened the whole country is likely
to be drenched out by the blood of some forty or fifty kerne; for
the two great confederacies have agreed, by solemn indenture of
arms, to decided their quarrel with such weapons as your Highness
may name, and in your royal presence, in such place as shall be
appointed, on the 30th of March next to come, being Palm Sunday;
the number of combatants being limited to thirty on each side; and
the fight to be maintained to extremity, since they affectionately make
humble suit and petition to your Majesty that you will parentally
condescend to waive for the day your royal privilege of interrupting
the combat, by flinging down of truncheon or crying of 'Ho!' until
the battle shall be utterly fought to an end."

"The wild savages!" exclaimed the King, "would they limit our best
and dearest royal privilege, that of putting a stop to strife,
and crying truce to battle? Will they remove the only motive which
could bring me to the butcherly spectacle of their combat? Would
they fight like men, or like their own mountain wolves?"

"My lord," said Albany, "the Earl of Crawford and I had presumed,
without consulting you, to ratify that preliminary, for the adoption
of which we saw much and pressing reason."

"How! the Earl of Crawford!" said the King. "Methinks he is a young
counsellor on such grave occurrents."

"He is," replied Albany, "notwithstanding his early years, of such
esteem among his Highland neighbours, that I could have done little
with them but for his aid and influence."

"Hear this, young Rothsay!" said the King reproachfully to his
heir.

"I pity Crawford, sire," replied the Prince. "He has too early lost
a father whose counsels would have better become such a season as
this."

The King turned next towards Albany with a look of triumph, at the
filial affection which his son displayed in his reply.

Albany proceeded without emotion. "It is not the life of these
Highlandmen, but their death, which is to be profitable to this
commonwealth of Scotland; and truly it seemed to the Earl of Crawford
and myself most desirable that the combat should be a strife of
extermination."

"Marry," said the Prince, "if such be the juvenile policy of Lindsay,
he will be a merciful ruler some ten or twelve years hence! Out
upon a boy that is hard of heart before he has hair upon his lip!
Better he had contented himself with fighting cocks on Fastern's
Even than laying schemes for massacring men on Palm Sunday, as if
he were backing a Welsh main, where all must fight to death."

"Rothsay is right, Albany," said the King: "it were unlike a Christian
monarch to give way in this point. I cannot consent to see men
battle until they are all hewn down like cattle in the shambles.
It would sicken me to look at it, and the warder would drop from
my hand for mere lack of strength to hold it."

"It would drop unheeded," said Albany. "Let me entreat your Grace
to recollect, that you only give up a royal privilege which,
exercised, would win you no respect, since it would receive no
obedience. Were your Majesty to throw down your warder when the
war is high, and these men's blood is hot, it would meet no more
regard than if a sparrow should drop among a herd of battling wolves
the straw which he was carrying to his nest. Nothing will separate
them but the exhaustion of slaughter; and better they sustain
it at the hands of each other than from the swords of such troops
as might attempt to separate them at your Majesty's commands. An
attempt to keep the peace by violence would be construed into an
ambush laid for them; both parties would unite to resist it, the
slaughter would be the same, and the hoped for results of future
peace would be utterly disappointed."

"There is even too much truth in what you say, brother Robin,"
replied the flexible King. "To little purpose is it to command
what I cannot enforce; and, although I have the unhappiness to do
so each day of my life, it were needless to give such a very public
example of royal impotency before the crowds who may assemble to
behold this spectacle. Let these savage men, therefore, work their
bloody will to the uttermost upon each other: I will not attempt
to forbid what I cannot prevent them from executing. Heaven help
this wretched country! I will to my oratory and pray for her, since
to aid her by hand and head is alike denied to me. Father prior,
I pray the support of your arm."

"Nay, but, brother," said Albany, "forgive me if I remind you that
we must hear the matter between the citizens of Perth and Ramorny,
about the death of a townsman--"

"True--true," said the monarch, reseating himself; "more violence
--more battle. Oh, Scotland! Scotland! if the best blood of thy
bravest children could enrich thy barren soil, what land on earth
would excel thee in fertility! When is it that a white hair is
seen on the beard of a Scottishman, unless he be some wretch like
thy sovereign, protected from murder by impotence, to witness the
scenes of slaughter to which he cannot put a period? Let them come
in, delay them not. They are in haste to kill, and, grudge each
other each fresh breath of their Creator's blessed air. The demon
of strife and slaughter hath possessed the whole land!"

As the mild prince threw himself back on his seat with an air of
impatience and anger not very usual with him, the door at the lower
end of the room was unclosed, and, advancing from the gallery into
which it led (where in perspective was seen a guard of the Bute
men, or Brandanes, under arms), came, in mournful procession, the
widow of poor Oliver, led by Sir Patrick Charteris, with as much
respect as if she had been a lady of the first rank. Behind them
came two women of good, the wives of magistrates of the city, both
in mourning garments, one bearing the infant and the other leading
the elder child. The smith followed in his best attire, and
wearing over his buff coat a scarf of crape. Bailie Craigdallie and
a brother magistrate closed the melancholy procession, exhibiting
similar marks of mourning.

The good King's transitory passion was gone the instant he looked
at the pallid countenance of the sorrowing widow, and beheld
the unconsciousness of the innocent orphans who had sustained so
great a loss, and when Sir Patrick Charteris had assisted Magdalen
Proudfute to kneel down and, still holding her hand, kneeled himself
on one knee, it was with a sympathetic tone that King Robert asked
her name and business. She made no answer, but muttered something,
looking towards her conductor.

"Speak for the poor woman, Sir Patrick Charteris," said the King,
"and tell us the cause of her seeking our presence."

"So please you, my liege," answered Sir Patrick, rising up, "this
woman, and these unhappy orphans, make plaint to your Highness
upon Sir John Ramorny of Ramorny, Knight, that by him, or by some
of his household, her umquhile husband, Oliver Proudfute, freeman
and burgess of Perth, was slain upon the streets of the city on
the eve of Shrove Tuesday or morning of Ash Wednesday."

"Woman," replied the King, with much kindness, "thou art gentle by
sex, and shouldst be pitiful even by thy affliction; for our own
calamity ought to make us--nay, I think it doth make us--merciful
to others. Thy husband hath only trodden the path appointed to us
all."

"In his case," said the widow, "my liege must remember it has been
a brief and a bloody one."

"I agree he hath had foul measure. But since I have been unable
to protect him, as I confess was my royal duty, I am willing, in
atonement, to support thee and these orphans, as well or better than
you lived in the days of your husband; only do thou pass from this
charge, and be not the occasion of spilling more life. Remember,
I put before you the choice betwixt practising mercy and pursuing
vengeance, and that betwixt plenty and penury."

"It is true, my liege, we are poor," answered the widow, with unshaken
firmness "but I and my children will feed with the beasts of the
field ere we live on the price of my husband's blood. I demand the
combat by my champion, as you are belted knight and crowned king."

"I knew it would be so!" said the King, aside to Albany. "In Scotland
the first words stammered by an infant and the last uttered by
a dying greybeard are 'combat--blood--revenge.' It skills not
arguing farther. Admit the defendants."

Sir John Ramorny entered the apartment. He was dressed in a long
furred robe, such as men of quality wore when they were unarmed.
Concealed by the folds of drapery, his wounded arm was supported by
a scarf or sling of crimson silk, and with the left arm he leaned
on a youth, who, scarcely beyond the years of boyhood, bore on his
brow the deep impression of early thought and premature passion.
This was that celebrated Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, who, in his
after days, was known by the epithet of the Tiger Earl, and who
ruled the great and rich valley of Strathmore with the absolute
power and unrelenting cruelty of a feudal tyrant. Two or three
gentlemen, friends of the Earl, or of his own, countenanced Sir
John Ramorny by their presence on this occasion. The charge was
again stated, and met by a broad denial on the part of the accused;
and in reply, the challengers offered to prove their assertion by
an appeal to the ordeal of bier right.

"I am not bound," answered Sir John Ramorny, "to submit to this
ordeal, since I can prove, by the evidence of my late royal master,
that I was in my own lodgings, lying on my bed, ill at ease, while
this provost and these bailies pretend I was committing a crime
to which I had neither will nor temptation. I can therefore be no
just object of suspicion."

"I can aver," said the Prince, "that I saw and conversed with Sir
John Ramorny about some matters concerning my own household on the
very night when this murder was a-doing. I therefore know that he
was ill at ease, and could not in person commit the deed in question.
But I know nothing of the employment of his attendants, and will
not take it upon me to say that some one of them may not have been
guilty of the crime now charged on them."

Sir John Ramorny had, during the beginning of this speech, looked
round with an air of defiance, which was somewhat disconcerted by
the concluding sentence of Rothsay's speech.

"I thank your Highness," he said, with a smile, "for your cautious
and limited testimony in my behalf. He was wise who wrote, 'Put
not your faith in princes.'"

"If you have no other evidence of your innocence, Sir John Ramorny,"
said the King, "we may not, in respect to your followers, refuse
to the injured widow and orphans, the complainers, the grant of
a proof by ordeal of bier right, unless any of them should prefer
that of combat. For yourself, you are, by the Prince's evidence,
freed from the attaint."

"My liege," answered Sir John, "I can take warrant upon myself for
the innocence of my household and followers."

"Why, so a monk or a woman might speak," said Sir Patrick Charteris.
"In knightly language, wilt thou, Sir John de Ramorny, do battle
with me in the behalf of thy followers?"

"The provost of Perth had not obtained time to name the word
combat," said Ramorny, "ere I would have accepted it. But I am not
at present fit to hold a lance."

"I am glad of it, under your favour, Sir John. There will be the
less bloodshed," said the King. "You must therefore produce your
followers according to your steward's household book, in the great
church of St. John, that, in presence of all whom it may concern,
they may purge themselves of this accusation. See that every man
of them do appear at the time of high mass, otherwise your honour
may be sorely tainted."

"They shall attend to a man," said Sir John Ramorny.

Then bowing low to the King, he directed himself to the young Duke
of Rothsay, and, making a deep obeisance, spoke so as to be heard
by him alone. "You have used me generously, my lord! One word of
your lips could have ended this controversy, and you have refused
to speak it."

"On my life," whispered the Prince, "I spake as far as the extreme
verge of truth and conscience would permit. I think thou couldst
not expect I should frame lies for thee; and after all, John, in my
broken recollections of that night, I do bethink me of a butcherly
looking mute, with a curtal axe, much like such a one as may have
done yonder night job. Ha! have I touched you, sir knight?"

Ramorny made no answer, but turned as precipitately as if some one
had pressed suddenly on his wounded arm, and regained his lodgings
with the Earl of Crawford; to whom, though disposed for anything
rather than revelry, he was obliged to offer a splendid collation,
to acknowledge in some degree his sense of the countenance which
the young noble had afforded him.



CHAPTER XXII.

In pottingry he wrocht great pyne;
He murdreit mony in medecyne.

DUNBAR.


When, after an entertainment the prolonging of which was like torture
to the wounded knight, the Earl of Crawford at length took horse,
to go to his distant quarters in the Castle of Dupplin, where he
resided as a guest, the Knight of Ramorny retired into his sleeping
apartment, agonized by pains of body and anxiety of mind. Here he
found Henbane Dwining, on whom it was his hard fate to depend for
consolation in both respects. The physician, with his affectation
of extreme humility, hoped he saw his exalted patient merry and
happy.

"Merry as a mad dog," said Ramorny, "and happy as the wretch whom
the cur hath bitten, and who begins to feel the approach of the
ravening madness! That ruthless boy, Crawford, saw my agony, and
spared not a single carouse. I must do him justice, forsooth! If I
had done justice to him and to the world, I had thrown him out of
window and cut short a career which, if he grew up as he has begun,
will prove a source of misery to all Scotland, but especially to
Tayside. Take heed as thou undoest the ligatures, chirurgeon, the
touch of a fly's wing on that raw glowing stump were like a dagger
to me."

"Fear not, my noble patron," said the leech, with a chuckling laugh
of enjoyment, which he vainly endeavoured to disguise under a tone
of affected sensibility. "We will apply some fresh balsam, and--
he, he, he!--relieve your knightly honour of the irritation which
you sustain so firmly."

"Firmly, man!" said Ramorny, grinning with pain; "I sustain it as
I would the scorching flames of purgatory. The bone seems made of
red hot iron; thy greasy ointment will hiss as it drops upon the
wound. And yet it is December's ice, compared to the fever fit of
my mind!"

"We will first use our emollients upon the body, my noble patron,"
said Dwining; "and then, with your knighthood's permission; your
servant will try his art on the troubled mind; though I fain hope
even the mental pain also may in some degree depend on the irritation
of the wound, and that, abated as I trust the corporeal pangs will
soon be, perhaps the stormy feelings of the mind may subside of
themselves."

"Henbane Dwining," said the patient, as he felt the pain of his
wound assuaged, "thou art a precious and invaluable leech, but some
things are beyond thy power. Thou canst stupify my bodily cause of
this raging agony, but thou canst not teach me to bear the score
of the boy whom I have brought up--whom I loved, Dwining--for
I did love him--dearly love him! The worst of my ill deeds have
been to flatter his vices; and he grudged me a word of his mouth,
when a word would have allayed this cumber! He smiled, too--I saw
him smile--when yon paltry provost, the companion and patron of
wretched burghers, defied me, whom this heartless prince knew to
be unable to bear arms. Ere I forget or forgive it, thou thyself
shalt preach up the pardoning of injuries! And then the care for
tomorrow! Think'st thou, Henbane Dwining, that, in very reality,
the Wounds of the slaughtered corpse will gape and shed tears of
fresh blood at the murderer's approach?"

"I cannot tell, my lord, save by report," said Dwining, "which
avouches the fact."

"The brute Bonthron," said Ramorny, "is startled at the apprehension
of such a thing, and speaking of being rather willing to stand the
combat. What think'st thou? He is a fellow of steel."

"It is the armourer's trade to deal with steel," replied Dwining.

"Were Bonthron to fall, it would little grieve me," said Ramorny;
"though I should miss an useful hand."

"I well believe your lordship will not sorrow as for that you lost
in Curfew Street. Excuse my pleasantry, he, he! But what are the
useful properties of this fellow Bonthron?"

"Those of a bulldog," answered the knight, "he worries without
barking."

"You have no fear of his confessing?" said the physician.

"Who can tell what the dread of approaching death may do?" replied
the patient. "He has already shown a timorousness entirely alien
from his ordinary sullenness of nature; he, that would scarce wash
his hands after he had slain a man, is now afraid to see a dead
body bleed."

"Well," said the leech, "I must do something for him if I can,
since it was to further my revenge that he struck yonder downright
blow, though by ill luck it lighted not where it was intended."

"And whose fault was that, timid villain," said Ramorny, "save
thine own, who marked a rascal deer for a buck of the first head?"

"Benedicite, noble sir," replied the mediciner; "would you have me,
who know little save of chamber practice, be as skilful of woodcraft
as your noble self, or tell hart from hind, doe from roe, in a glade
at midnight? I misdoubted me little when I saw the figure run past
us to the smith's habitation in the wynd, habited like a morrice
dancer; and yet my mind partly misgave me whether it was our man,
for methought he seemed less of stature. But when he came out again,
after so much time as to change his dress, and swaggered onward
with buff coat and steel cap, whistling after the armourer's wonted
fashion, I do own I was mistaken super totam materiem, and loosed
your knighthood's bulldog upon him, who did his devoir most duly,
though he pulled down the wrong deer. Therefore, unless the accursed
smith kill our poor friend stone dead on the spot, I am determined,
if art may do it, that the ban dog Bonthron shall not miscarry."

"It will put thine art to the test, man of medicine," said Ramorny;
"for know that, having the worst of the combat, if our champion
be not killed stone dead in the lists, he will be drawn forth of
them by the heels, and without further ceremony knitted up to the
gallows, as convicted of the murder; and when he hath swung there
like a loose tassel for an hour or so, I think thou wilt hardly
take it in hand to cure his broken neck."

"I am of a different opinion, may it please your knighthood,"
answered Dwining, gently. "I will carry him off from the very foot
of the gallows into the land of faery, like King Arthur, or Sir
Huon of Bordeaux, or Ugero the Dane; or I will, if I please, suffer
him to dangle on the gibbet for a certain number of minutes, or
hours, and then whisk him away from the sight of all, with as much
ease as the wind wafts away the withered leaf."

"This is idle boasting, sir leech," replied Ramorny. "The whole
mob of Perth will attend him to the gallows, each more eager than
another to see the retainer of a nobleman die, for the slaughter
of a cuckoldly citizen. There will be a thousand of them round the
gibbet's foot."

"And were there ten thousand," said Dwining, "shall I, who am
a high clerk, and have studied in Spain, and Araby itself, not be
able to deceive the eyes of this hoggish herd of citizens, when
the pettiest juggler that ever dealt in legerdemain can gull even
the sharp observation of your most intelligent knighthood? I tell
you, I will put the change on them as if I were in possession of
Keddie's ring."

"If thou speakest truth," answered the knight, "and I think thou
darest not palter with me on such a theme, thou must have the aid
of Satan, and I will have nought to do with him. I disown and defy
him."

Dwining indulged in his internal chuckling laugh when he heard his
patron testify his defiance of the foul fiend, and saw him second
it by crossing himself. He composed himself, however, upon observing
Ramorny's aspect become very stern, and said, with tolerable gravity,
though a little interrupted by the effort necessary to suppress
his mirthful mood:

"Confederacy, most devout sir--confederacy is the soul of jugglery.
But--he, he, he!--I have not the honour to be--he, he!--an
ally of the gentleman of whom you speak--in whose existence I am
--he, he!--no very profound believer, though your knightship,
doubtless, hath better opportunities of acquaintance."

"Proceed, rascal, and without that sneer, which thou mayst otherwise
dearly pay for."

"I will, most undaunted," replied Dwining. "Know that I have my
confederate too, else my skill were little worth."

"And who may that be, pray you?"

"Stephen Smotherwell, if it like your honour, lockman of this Fair
City. I marvel your knighthood knows him not."

"And I marvel thy knaveship knows him not on professional
acquaintance," replied Ramorny; "but I see thy nose is unslit, thy
ears yet uncropped, and if thy shoulders are scarred or branded,
thou art wise for using a high collared jerkin."

"He, he! your honour is pleasant," said the mediciner. "It is not
by personal circumstances that I have acquired the intimacy of
Stephen Smotherwell, but on account of a certain traffic betwixt
us, in which an't please you, I exchange certain sums of silver
for the bodies, heads, and limbs of those who die by aid of friend
Stephen."

"Wretch!" exclaimed the knight with horror, "is it to compose charms
and forward works of witchcraft that you trade for these miserable
relics of mortality?"

"He, he, he! No, an it please your knighthood," answered the
mediciner, much amused with the ignorance of his patron; "but we,
who are knights of the scalpel, are accustomed to practise careful
carving of the limbs of defunct persons, which we call dissection,
whereby we discover, by examination of a dead member, how to deal
with one belonging to a living man, which hath become diseased through
injury or otherwise. Ah! if your honour saw my poor laboratory,
I could show you heads and hands, feet and lungs, which have been
long supposed to be rotting in the mould. The skull of Wallace,
stolen from London Bridge; the head of Sir Simon Fraser [the famous
ancestor of the Lovats, slain at Halidon Hill (executed in London
in 1306)], that never feared man; the lovely skull of the fair Katie
Logie [(should be Margaret Logie), the beautiful mistress of David
II]. Oh, had I but had the fortune to have preserved the chivalrous
hand of mine honoured patron!"

Out upon thee, slave! Thinkest thou to disgust me with thy catalogue
of horrors? Tell me at once where thy discourse drives. How can
thy traffic with the hangdog executioner be of avail to serve me,
or to help my servant Bonthron?"

"Nay, I do not recommend it to your knighthood, save in an extremity,"
replied Dwining. "But we will suppose the battle fought and our cock
beaten. Now we must first possess him with the certainty that, if
unable to gain the day, we will at least save him from the hangman,
provided he confess nothing which can prejudice your knighthood's
honour."

"Ha! ay, a thought strikes me," said Ramorny. "We can do more
than this, we can place a word in Bonthron's mouth that will be
troublesome enough to him whom I am bound to curse for being the
cause of my misfortune. Let us to the ban dog's kennel, and explain
to him what is to be done in every view of the question. If we can
persuade him to stand the bier ordeal, it may be a mere bugbear,
and in that case we are safe. If he take the combat, he is fierce
as a baited bear, and may, perchance, master his opponent; then
we are more than safe, we are avenged. If Bonthron himself is
vanquished, we will put thy device in exercise; and if thou canst
manage it cleanly; we may dictate his confession, take the advantage
of it, as I will show thee on further conference, and make a giant
stride towards satisfaction for my wrongs. Still there remains
one hazard. Suppose our mastiff mortally wounded in the lists, who
shall prevent his growling out some species of confession different
from what we would recommend?"

"Marry, that can his mediciner," said Dwining. "Let me wait on
him, and have the opportunity to lay but a finger on his wound,
and trust me he shall betray no confidence."

"Why, there's a willing fiend, that needs neither pushing nor
prompting!" said Ramorny.

"As I trust I shall need neither in your knighthood's service."

"We will go indoctrinate our agent," continued the knight. "We shall
find him pliant; for, hound as he is, he knows those who feed from
those who browbeat him; and he holds a late royal master of mine
in deep hate for some injurious treatment and base terms which he
received at his hand. I must also farther concert with thee the
particulars of thy practice, for saving the ban dog from the hands
of the herd of citizens."

We leave this worthy pair of friends to their secret practices, of
which we shall afterwards see the results. They were, although of
different qualities, as well matched for device and execution of
criminal projects as the greyhound is to destroy the game which
the slowhound raises, or the slowhound to track the prey which
the gazehound discovers by the eye. Pride and selfishness were the
characteristics of both; but, from the difference of rank, education,
and talents, they had assumed the most different appearance in the
two individuals.

Nothing could less resemble the high blown ambition of the favourite
courtier, the successful gallant, and the bold warrior than the
submissive, unassuming mediciner, who seemed even to court and
delight in insult; whilst, in his secret soul, he felt himself
possessed of a superiority of knowledge, a power both of science
and of mind, which placed the rude nobles of the day infinitely
beneath him. So conscious was Henbane Dwining of this elevation,
that, like a keeper of wild beasts, he sometimes adventured, for
his own amusement, to rouse the stormy passions of such men as
Ramorny, trusting, with his humble manner, to elude the turmoil he
had excited, as an Indian boy will launch his light canoe, secure
from its very fragility, upon a broken surf, in which the boat
of an argosy would be assuredly dashed to pieces. That the feudal
baron should despise the humble practitioner in medicine was a
matter of course; but Ramorny felt not the less the influence which
Dwining exercised over him, and was in the encounter of their wits
often mastered by him, as the most eccentric efforts of a fiery
horse are overcome by a boy of twelve years old, if he has been
bred to the arts of the manege. But the contempt of Dwining for
Ramorny was far less qualified. He regarded the knight, in comparison
with himself, as scarcely rising above the brute creation; capable,
indeed, of working destruction, as the bull with his horns or the
wolf with his fangs, but mastered by mean prejudices, and a slave
to priest craft, in which phrase Dwining included religion of every
kind. On the whole, he considered Ramorny as one whom nature had
assigned to him as a serf, to mine for the gold which he worshipped,
and the avaricious love of which was his greatest failing, though
by no means his worst vice. He vindicated this sordid tendency in
his own eyes by persuading himself that it had its source in the
love of power.

"Henbane Dwining," he said, as he gazed in delight upon the hoards
which he had secretly amassed, and which he visited from time to
time, "is no silly miser that doats on those pieces for their golden
lustre: it is the power with which they endow the possessor which
makes him thus adore them. What is there that these put not within
your command? Do you love beauty, and are mean, deformed, infirm,
and old? Here is a lure the fairest hawk of them all will stoop to.
Are you feeble, weak, subject to the oppression of the powerful?
Here is that will arm in your defence those more mighty than the
petty tyrant whom you fear. Are you splendid in your wishes, and
desire the outward show of opulence? This dark chest contains many
a wide range of hill and dale, many a fair forest full of game, the
allegiance of a thousand vassals. Wish you for favour in courts,
temporal or spiritual? The smiles of kings, the pardon of popes and
priests for old crimes, and the indulgence which encourages priest
ridden fools to venture on new ones--all these holy incentives
to vice may be purchased for gold. Revenge itself, which the gods
are said to reserve to themselves, doubtless because they envy
humanity so sweet a morsel--revenge itself is to be bought by it.
But it is also to be won by superior skill, and that is the nobler
mode of reaching it. I will spare, then, my treasure for other uses,
and accomplish my revenge gratis; or rather I will add the luxury
of augmented wealth to the triumph of requited wrongs."

Thus thought Dwining, as, returned from his visit to Sir John Ramorny,
he added the gold he had received for his various services to the
mass of his treasure; and, having gloated over the whole for a minute
or two, turned the key on his concealed treasure house, and walked
forth on his visits to his patients, yielding the wall to every
man whom he met and bowing and doffing his bonnet to the poorest
burgher that owned a petty booth, nay, to the artificers who gained
their precarious bread by the labour of their welked hands.

"Caitiffs," was the thought of his heart while he did such obeisance
--"base, sodden witted mechanics! did you know what this key
could disclose, what foul weather from heaven would prevent your
unbonneting? what putrid kennel in your wretched hamlet would be
disgusting enough to make you scruple to fall down and worship the
owner of such wealth? But I will make you feel my power, though it
suits my honour to hide the source of it. I will be an incubus to
your city, since you have rejected me as a magistrate. Like the
night mare, I will hag ride ye, yet remain invisible myself. This
miserable Ramorny, too, he who, in losing his hand, has, like a
poor artisan, lost the only valuable part of his frame, he heaps
insulting language on me, as if anything which he can say had power
to chafe a constant mind like mine! Yet, while he calls me rogue,
villain, and slave, he acts as wisely as if he should amuse himself
by pulling hairs out of my head while my hand had hold of his heart
strings. Every insult I can pay back instantly by a pang of bodily
pain or mental agony, and--he, he!--I run no long accounts with
his knighthood, that must be allowed."

While the mediciner was thus indulging his diabolical musing,
and passing, in his creeping manner, along the street, the cry of
females was heard behind him.

"Ay, there he is, Our Lady be praised!--there is the most helpful
man in Perth," said one voice.

"They may speak of knights and kings for redressing wrongs, as
they call it; but give me worthy Master Dwining the potter carrier,
cummers," replied another.

At the same moment, the leech was surrounded and taken hold of by
the speakers, good women of the Fair City.

"How now, what's the matter?" said Dwining, "whose cow has calved?"

"There is no calving in the case," said one of the women, "but a
poor fatherless wean dying; so come awa' wi' you, for our trust is
constant in you, as Bruce said to Donald of the Isles."

"Opiferque per orbem dicor," said Henbane Dwining. "What is the
child dying of?"

"The croup--the croup," screamed one of the gossips; "the innocent
is rouping like a corbie."

"Cynanche trachealis--that disease makes brief work. Show me the
house instantly," continued the mediciner, who was in the habit of
exercising his profession liberally, not withstanding his natural
avarice, and humanely, in spite of his natural malignity. As we
can suspect him of no better principle, his motive most probably
may have been vanity and the love of his art.

He would nevertheless have declined giving his attendance in the
present case had he known whither the kind gossips were conducting
him, in time sufficient to frame an apology. But, ere he guessed
where he was going, the leech was hurried into the house of the
late Oliver Proudfute, from which he heard the chant of the women
as they swathed and dressed the corpse of the umquhile bonnet maker
for the ceremony of next morning, of which chant the following
verses may be received as a modern imitation:

Viewless essence, thin and bare,
Well nigh melted into air,
Still with fondness hovering near
The earthly form thou once didst wear,

Pause upon thy pinion's flight;
Be thy course to left or right,
Be thou doom'd to soar or sink,
Pause upon the awful brink.

To avenge the deed expelling
Thee untimely from thy dwelling,
Mystic force thou shalt retain
O'er the blood and o'er the brain.

When the form thou shalt espy
That darken'd on thy closing eye,
When the footstep thou shalt hear
That thrill'd upon thy dying ear,

Then strange sympathies shall wake,
The flesh shall thrill, the nerves shall quake,
The wounds renew their clotter'd flood,
And every drop cry blood for blood!

Hardened as he was, the physician felt reluctance to pass the threshold
of the man to whose death he had been so directly, though, so far
as the individual was concerned, mistakingly, accessory.

"Let me pass on, women," he said, "my art can only help the living
--the dead are past our power."

"Nay, but your patient is upstairs--the youngest orphan"--
Dwining was compelled to go into the house. But he was surprised
when, the instant he stepped over the threshold, the gossips, who
were busied with the dead body, stinted suddenly in their song,
while one said to the others:

"In God's name, who entered? That was a large gout of blood."

"Not so," said another voice, "it is a drop of the liquid balm."

"Nay, cummer, it was blood. Again I say, who entered the house even
now?"

One looked out from the apartment into the little entrance, where
Dwining, under pretence of not distinctly seeing the trap ladder
by which he was to ascend into the upper part of this house of
lamentation, was delaying his progress purposely, disconcerted with
what had reached him of the conversation.

"Nay, it is only worthy Master Henbane Dwining," answered one of
the sibyls.

"Only Master Dwining," replied the one who had first spoken, in a
tone of acquiescence--"our best helper in need! Then it must have
been balm sure enough."

"Nay," said the other, "it may have been blood nevertheless; for
the leech, look you, when the body was found, was commanded by the
magistrates to probe the wound with his instruments, and how could
the poor dead corpse know that that was done with good purpose?"

"Ay, truly, cummer; and as poor Oliver often mistook friends for
enemies while he was in life, his judgment cannot be thought to
have mended now."

Dwining heard no more, being now forced upstairs into a species
of garret, where Magdalen sat on her widowed bed, clasping to her
bosom her infant, which, already black in the face and uttering
the gasping, crowing sound which gives the popular name to the
complaint, seemed on the point of rendering up its brief existence.
A Dominican monk sat near the bed, holding the other child in his
arms, and seeming from time to time to speak a word or two of spiritual
consolation, or intermingle some observation on the child's disorder.

The mediciner cast upon the good father a single glance, filled
With that ineffable disdain which men of science entertain against
interlopers. His own aid was instant and efficacious: he snatched the
child from the despairing mother, stripped its throat, and opened
a vein, which, as it bled freely, relieved the little patient
instantaneously. In a brief space every dangerous symptom disappeared,
and Dwining, having bound up the vein, replaced the infant in the
arms of the half distracted mother.

The poor woman's distress for her husband's loss, which had been
suspended during the extremity of the child's danger, now returned
on Magdalen with the force of an augmented torrent, which has borne
down the dam dike that for a while interrupted its waves.

"Oh, learned sir," she said, "you see a poor woman of her that you
once knew a richer. But the hands that restored this bairn to my
arms must not leave this house empty. Generous, kind Master Dwining,
accept of his beads; they are made of ebony and silver. He aye liked
to have his things as handsome as any gentleman, and liker he was
in all his ways to a gentleman than any one of his standing, and
even so came of it."

With these words, in a mute passion of grief she pressed to her
breast and to her lips the chaplet of her deceased husband, and
proceeded to thrust it into Dwining's hands.

"Take it," she said, "for the love of one who loved you well. Ah,
he used ever to say, if ever man could be brought back from the
brink of the grave, it must be by Master Dwining's guidance. And
his ain bairn is brought back this blessed day, and he is lying
there stark and stiff, and kens naething of its health and sickness!
Oh, woe is me, and walawa! But take the beads, and think on his
puir soul, as you put them through your fingers, he will be freed
from purgatory the sooner that good people pray to assoilzie him."

"Take back your beads, cummer; I know no legerdemain, can do no
conjuring tricks," said the mediciner, who, more moved than perhaps
his rugged nature had anticipated, endeavoured to avoid receiving
the ill omened gift. But his last words gave offence to the churchman,
whose presence he had not recollected when he uttered them.

"How now, sir leech!" said the Dominican, "do you call prayers for
the dead juggling tricks? I know that Chaucer, the English maker,
says of you mediciners, that your study is but little on the Bible.
Our mother, the church, hath nodded of late, but her eyes are now
opened to discern friends from foes; and be well assured--"

"Nay, reverend father," said Dwining, "you take me at too great
advantage. I said I could do no miracles, and was about to add
that, as the church certainly could work such conclusions, those
rich beads should be deposited in your hands, to be applied as they
may best benefit the soul of the deceased."

He dropped the beads into the Dominican's hand, and escaped from
the house of mourning.

"This was a strangely timed visit," he said to himself, when he
got safe out of doors. "I hold such things cheap as any can; yet,
though it is but a silly fancy, I am glad I saved the squalling
child's life. But I must to my friend Smotherwell, whom I have no
doubt to bring to my purpose in the matter of Bonthron; and thus
on this occasion I shall save two lives, and have destroyed only
one."



CHAPTER XXIII.

Lo! where he lies embalmed in gore,
His wound to Heaven cries:
The floodgates of his blood implore
For vengeance from the skies.

Uranus and Psyche.


The High Church of St. John in Perth, being that of the patron
saint of the burgh, had been selected by the magistrates as that
in which the community was likely to have most fair play for the
display of the ordeal. The churches and convents of the Dominicans,
Carthusians, and others of the regular clergy had been highly endowed
by the King and nobles, and therefore it was the universal cry of
the city council that "their ain good auld St. John," of whose good
graces they thought themselves sure, ought to be fully confided
in, and preferred to the new patrons, for whom the Dominicans,
Carthusians, Carmelites, and others had founded newer seats around
the Fair City. The disputes between the regular and secular clergy
added to the jealousy which dictated this choice of the spot in
which Heaven was to display a species of miracle, upon a direct
appeal to the divine decision in a case of doubtful guilt; and the
town clerk was as anxious that the church of St. John should be
preferred as if there had been a faction in the body of saints for
and against the interests of the beautiful town of Perth.

Many, therefore, were the petty intrigues entered into and disconcerted
for the purpose of fixing on the church. But the magistrates,
considering it as a matter touching in a close degree the honour
of the city, determined, with judicious confidence in the justice
and impartiality of their patron, to confide the issue to the
influence of St. John.

It was, therefore, after high mass had been performed with the
greatest solemnity of which circumstances rendered the ceremony
capable, and after the most repeated and fervent prayers had been
offered to Heaven by the crowded assembly, that preparations were
made for appealing to the direct judgment of Heaven on the mysterious
murder of the unfortunate bonnet maker.

The scene presented that effect of imposing solemnity which the
rites of the Catholic Church are so well qualified to produce.
The eastern window, richly and variously painted, streamed down a
torrent of chequered light upon the high altar. On the bier placed
before it were stretched the mortal remains of the murdered man,
his arms folded on his breast, and his palms joined together, with
the fingers pointed upwards, as if the senseless clay was itself
appealing to Heaven for vengeance against those who had violently
divorced the immortal spirit from its mangled tenement.

Close to the bier was placed the throne which supported Robert
of Scotland and his brother Albany. The Prince sat upon a lower
stool, beside his father--an arrangement which occasioned some
observation, as, Albany's seat being little distinguished from that
of the King, the heir apparent, though of full age, seemed to be
degraded beneath his uncle in the sight of the assembled people of
Perth. The bier was so placed as to leave the view of the body it
sustained open to the greater part of the multitude assembled in
the church.

At the head of the bier stood the Knight of Kinfauns, the challenger,
and at the foot the young Earl of Crawford, as representing the
defendant. The evidence of the Duke of Rothsay in expurgation,
as it was termed, of Sir John Ramorny, had exempted him from the
necessity of attendance as a party subjected to the ordeal; and his
illness served as a reason for his remaining at home. His household,
including those who, though immediately in waiting upon Sir John,
were accounted the Prince's domestics, and had not yet received
their dismissal, amounted to eight or ten persons, most of them
esteemed men of profligate habits, and who might therefore be
deemed capable, in the riot of a festival evening, of committing
the slaughter of the bonnet maker. They were drawn up in a row on
the left side of the church, and wore a species of white cassock,
resembling the dress of a penitentiary. All eyes being bent on
them, several of this band seemed so much disconcerted as to excite
among the spectators strong prepossessions of their guilt. The real
murderer had a countenance incapable of betraying him--a sullen,
dark look, which neither the feast nor wine cup could enliven, and
which the peril of discovery and death could not render dejected.

We have already noticed the posture of the dead body. The face
was bare, as were the breast and arms. The rest of the corpse was
shrouded in a winding sheet of the finest linen, so that, if blood
should flow from any place which was covered, it could not fail to
be instantly manifest.

High mass having been performed, followed by a solemn invocation
to the Deity, that He would be pleased to protect the innocent, and
make known the guilty, Eviot, Sir John Ramorny's page, was summoned
to undergo the ordeal. He advanced with an ill assured step. Perhaps
he thought his internal consciousness that Bonthron must have been
the assassin might be sufficient to implicate him in the murder,
though he was not directly accessory to it. He paused before the
bier; and his voice faltered, as he swore by all that was created
in seven days and seven nights, by heaven, by hell, by his part of
paradise, and by the God and author of all, that he was free and
sackless of the bloody deed done upon the corpse before which he
stood, and on whose breast he made the sign of the cross, in evidence
of the appeal. No consequences ensued. The body remained stiff as
before, the curdled wounds gave no sign of blood.